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Manually updating your iPod
by Dean Mortlock
14.12.06 |
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One of the few problems with the fact that iPods now come with gargantuan hard drives is that it’s almost impossible to sync your 80Gb iPod with your computer, as you probably won't have enough space on your computer’s hard drive to store 80 Gigabytes worth of music and video files. If that’s the case with you, then the solution is to manually update your iPod – which means that instead of everything automatically synching when you connect your iPod to iTunes, you have to drag and drop new files to update it.
Thankfully, that’s not quite as laborious as it sounds, and iTunes gives you full control of the media files in your library, meaning that you can choose to manually update just your music or video files, your podcasts, your photos or the whole lot. If you set the system up properly at the start, then you should save yourself a lot of time and trouble. Here’s how it works…
FROM THE TOP
Start by opening up iTunes and connecting your iPod. If you’ve set it up to automatically sync with iTunes then that’s the first thing it’ll do – check out the window at the top of the iTunes screen to see which files are being transferred. Then take a look at your Options on the main iPod Summary tab. If you want to organise and update your iPod yourself, make sure that you put a tick in the box next to ‘Manually manage music and videos’ (image 1) and if you also want to transfer a limited number of files automatically, click on ‘Only sync checked items’.
Now it’s time to go through each of the various types of media, adjusting the preferences in each one to suit your updating requirements. Start by going to music. Here you have the chance to sync your whole library or selected playlists. If you activated ‘only sync checked items’ on the Summary page, then you’re free to change your music options so that you update, for example, just your purchased music or any number or playlists – which, for example, could be smart playlists that are updated live.
The Movies tab is very similar, although there are a couple of interesting pull-down menus. Click on ‘Sync movies’ and then if you pick the unwatched movies menu, you can choose to sync from a number of unwatched movies in your library. Then, on the next menu, you can pick between individual movies or playlists.
Podcasts offer you a similar level of control, so you can sync your entire podcast archive or any number of unwatched ones or recent additions. You can also choose to just update individual podcasts by clicking on the names of each one.
PHOTOGRAPHY CLASS
Putting photos on your iPod is slightly different, as you’re not working directly from the iTunes library. The first thing you need to do is select a source for where iTunes will get your photos. If you have a Mac, this is made easier for you by the fact that all your photographs will probably be stored on iPhoto (image 2). If you’re using a PC though, you’ll need to find the folder contacting the images and select it here. The chances are that you won’t want to sync your entire photo library, so if you pick ‘Selected albums’ then you only need to pick the ones you need. Finally, if you click on ‘Include full-resolution photos’ then your iPod will store hi-res versions of all your photos on its hard drive, which you can then transfer to other computers to share or print out. To locate the photos, make sure that you’ve activated ‘Enable disk use’ from the Summary page and then go into the Photos folder on your iPod.
All this means that although you might not have the memory to store your entire iTunes library, you are free to cherry pick the items you do want. If you’ve got a large movie file that you want to put on your iPod before removing it from your hard drive, all you need to do is just drag and drop it onto your iPod’s name in the Source list (image 3) and, as long as it’s the correct format, it’ll be added to your iPod’s library. Then you’re free to back up the original movie to CD or DVD or just delete it immediately.
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1. If you’d rather not manually update your iPod, then it might be worth investing in an external hard drive to store your entire iTunes library on. |
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2. If you ever want to transfer a file back from your iPod to your computer after you’ve deleted it from your hard drive, then check out our Tutorials section for a walkthrough that should help you. |
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